Mucho Logotype Evokes Gritty Tenderloin District

Mucho has created the identity and merchandise for the Tenderloin Museum, which celebrates the rich history of the infamous San Francisco neighborhood. The 31 blocks of the Tenderloin District are described as “the last bastion of a San Francisco that once was, peopled by immigrants and iconoclasts, artists and activists, sinners and saints.” The permanent installation tells the story of the neighborhood from its rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake through the present. Once known for “girls, gambling and graft,” the Tenderloin was also fertile ground for the Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, Dashiell Hammett and other cultural icons.

The Mucho identity features a typeface created taking letters from various signs around the neighborhood, including porn establishments, drug rehab centers, coffee shops, SRO hotels. All were repurposed to create an eclectic identity, complemented with a woodblock font to help suggest the gritty nature of the area. T-shirts can be purchased with street names of the neighborhood and a woodblock map of the area is also available. A global design firm, Mucho’s San Francisco office is on the edge of the Tenderloin and, they note, “we were very proud to help out a museum and cause that is close to our hearts.”